OASIS@Work
Summer Workshop 1998

To give the Technical Committee a better understanding
of the work to be done

To identify some immediate technical issues

To get feedback on those issues

To prioritize and identify a role for OASIS

To get Board approval on the OASIS role (including
sponsorship structure for SSHI)

Session Committee Members

An attendance list was not taken. The session took
place as part of the Technical Committee Plenary.

Accomplishments/Deliverables

An overview of the nature of the STEP/SGML harmonization
work was given by Daniel Rivers-Moore and Eliot Kimber
(ISOGEN). Key tasks include the development of an EXPRESS
model of SGML, a Property Set for EXPRESS data and an
XML representation of EXPRESS data and schemas.

Some of the technical issues that need to be addressed
were outlined. In view of time constraints, it was not
possible to look in detail at these technical issues,
but the decision was reached that OASIS should support
the ongoing work in this area.

A request for volunteers to participate actively in
the technical work gave rise to one new volunteer -
Irina Golfman (Inera), in addition to Eliot Kimber (Isogen)
and Daniel Rivers-Moore (RivCom), who are already involved.
However, there was consensus that OASIS should actively
support this technical work by making it a sponsored
technical initiative to which OASIS members can opt
to have a percentage of their membership fees allocated
(according to the new structures currently being discussed
by the Board). This will enable the work to proceed
at a faster rate than would otherwise be possible.

Member Benefit

STEP/SGML harmonization will enable SGML-aware tools
and STEP-aware tools to interoperate in ways that will
open up the possibility of technical documentation being
truly integrated with product data. This is of great
importance to major manufacturers and users of large
complex items of equipment, from automobiles to aircraft
to power plants.

OASIS support for this activity will open the way for
recruitment of major users of structured information,
to increase the membership of the consortium, and improve
vendor-user communication and cooperation in the open
structured information marketplace.

Action Items

Daniel Rivers-Moore (RivCom) will act as a liaison
with the OASIS Board about the setting up of a formal
STEP/SGML Harmonization Initiative with affiliate/subgroup
status and will actively seek new members of OASIS who
wish to sign up to this activity.

Eliot Kimber, Daniel Rivers-Moore and Irina Golfman
will continue to work with others involved in the STEP/SGML
harmonization work under ISO TC184/SC4 and will report
back to OASIS as this work proceeds.

Unresolved Issues

There could be a role for XLL and MathML within the
XML representation of EXPRESS data and schemas. MathML
is already approved as a W3C Recommendation, but XLL
is still work in progress.